About AFGIIt is the mission of the Alliance for Global Justice to achieve social change and economic justice by helping to build a stronger more unified grassroots movement. We recognize that the concentration of wealth and power is the root cause of oppression requiring us to work together across ideologies, issues and communities. The Alliance nurtures organizations seeking fundamental change in international and national conditions that disempower people, create disparities in access to wealth and power, poison the earth, and plunder its resources.We support locally-based grassroots organizing by sharing political analysis, mobilizing for direct action, monitoring the centers of corporate and government power, expanding channels of communication, and sharing skills and infrastructure. Our commitment to solidarity and to non-hierarchical democratic process enables us to respectfully listen and respond to each other within the movement.Alliance for Global JusticeAFGJ_750d186c-8300-11e7-865d-a15f935edbbcTrim BissellTrim, founder and National Co-Coordinator of the Alliance for Global Justice's Campaign for Labor Rights, succumbed after a 20-month battle with a brain tumor and left the ranks of those who struggle for justice and peace. Trim died on June 15, 2002 in the home he shared with his wife, Ruth Evan. He was surrounded by his art, vividly colored paintings and sculptures that were his third passion in life following Ruth and the Campaign for Labor Rights. His memory is carried on in his art and the work of the Alliance for Global Justice.Grassroots OrganizationsAFGJ StaffKatherine HoytKatherine Hoyt is National Co-Coordinator of Alliance for Global Justice and its Nicaragua Network program. She lived eighteen years in Latin America -- two years in Chile and sixteen in Nicaragua. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Rutgers University and has authored numerous academic and activist publications including The Many Faces of Sandinista Democracy from Ohio University Press. She has taught at Wayne State University, Rutgers University and Whitman College. In the mid-eighties she served as the Michigan coordinator of the Pledge of Resistance as director of the Michigan Interfaith Committee on Central American Human Rights (MICAH) in Detroit.
At Alliance for Global Justice, she has worked on campaigns to support Nicaragua’s garment workers and on campaigns against IMF mandated privatization and user fees. In the 2000s, she actively represented the Nicaragua Network in the Stop CAFTA Coalition.
Kathy recently retired and is now serving the organization as a member of AFGJ's Advisory Board.James Patrick JordanJames Patrick Jordan has lived in Tucson, Arizona since 1983. He has a long history of grassroots organizing in peace, labor, international solidarity and environmental movements. James has published articles on these subjects in a variety of outlets and has authored or co-authored two plays about Colombian prisons. His main duties at AfGJ are in regards to Colombia solidarity, ecology, labor and prison issues. He serves on the Board of the Liberty Tree Foundation and represents AfGJ in the Coordinadora Americana por los Derechos Humanos y las Víctimas de Prisión Política (American Coordination for Human Rights and the Victims of Political Imprisonment) and the Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de los Pueblos (Peoples Human Rights Observatory).Chuck KaufmanChuck Kaufman is National Co-Coordinator of the Alliance for Global Justice. He has been a leader of the Central and Latin America solidarity movements since joining the staff of the Nicaragua Network in 1987. He gave up his successful advertising business out of disgust at Congress’ cowardice during the Iran-Contra scandal. He went on his first coffee picking brigade to Nicaragua that same year. Chuck has been in the front ranks of the movements to support the right of people in Latin America and the Caribbean to dignity, sovereignty, and self-determination. He has led delegations to Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti and Honduras.
Chuck has written and spoken often about US democracy manipulation programs through the National Endowment for Democracy and US Agency for International Development as well as what he calls the need to look to the Abolition Movement as our inspiration to change the culture of US militarism. He is a board member of the Latin America Solidarity Coalition and a leader of the LASC's effort to build a stronger movement to oppose US militarism and the militarization of relations with Latin America. He was a founder of the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition and has spoken at most of the major Washington, DC anti-war demonstrations. He is a board member of the Honduras Solidarity Network and a founder of the Venezuela Solidarity Network. He has a B.A. in Government and Politics from George Mason University. His first political activism was as a high school student in 1969 when he organized student walk-out in four county high schools in his native Indiana.Elane Spivak RodriguezElane Spivak Rodriguez is the Fiscal Sponsorship Coordinator for the Alliance for Global Justice. She also leads AfGJ human rights solidarity delegation to Nicaragua and Honduras and is an active with the Honduras Solidarity Network. Coordinating with our 90+ fiscally sponsored projects, Elane works to bring the work of our fiscally sponsored projects together to build a stronger more unified grassroots movement.Daniele KohnDaniele Kohn is the Fiscal Sponsorship Co-Coordinator and Content Manager for the Alliance for Global Justice. Prior to this position, she managed a fiscally sponsored project under the umbrella of AFGJ. Daniele is a New York native who studied undergraduate at Brandeis University, focusing on studio art and business. She then went to Columbia University to earn a Masters in Arts Administration and Non-Profit management. While in graduate school, her sister traveled to Morocco and was set to visit Tunisia as part of an academic excursion when whispers of popular uprising began. This was the beginning of Arab spring, and piqued Daniele's interest in political and social change.
In fall 2011 she took an interest in Occupy Wall Street. Since then, she has been pivotal in fundraising for activist work in New York City, most notably the Action Bail Fund, which supports those arrested while engaging in legal protest. She was deeply involved in the Occupy Sandy Hurricane Recovery Effort.Blanca Bay DominguezBlanca Bay Dominguez is a native Tucsonian and a long time Yaqui activist. Blanca was born into activist work; Blanca's mother was one of the first Tucson Promotoros, human rights promoters. She has worked with a number of local organizations, including El Concillio Manzo and Derechos Humanos.
Blanca serves as AFGJ's invaluable book keeper and office manager. She is the mother of 2 and grandmother to 4.Nasim ChathaNasim Chatha coordinates the Prison Imperialism Project. She was born in New York City and was raised in Baltimore County, Maryland. She graduated from Oberlin College, majoring in Comparative Literature and Politics. Her capstone project was on Gloria Anzaldúa. She first worked with AfGJ as an intern with the Border Studies Program in 2012 and joined the staff five years later. Before joining AfGJ she taught Citizenship/ESL classes and did outreach and communications for a Baltimore civil legal aid nonprofit. Her writing on Prison Imperialism has been published in The Abolitionist, Upside Down World, and Mask Magazine.AFGJ Board of DirectorsThe Board of AFGJ is an activist board meeting once a year for a retreat but taking part monthly in conference calls and regularly contributes by e-mail in working with the staff and volunteers at furthering AFGJ's mission.Tom BakerTom Baker's background as an Iowa farmer and worker has influenced his world-view. He graduated from the University of Iowa with a BA in secondary education with concentrations in history and economics. He was drafted from his teaching position as the Audio Visual Director at a high school in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and served two years in the Vietnam War where he was a combat photographer for the US Army 1st Aviation Brigade. Witnessing the extensive imposition of foreign capital and politics upon the indigenous people, he resolved to work toward total change of political and economic systems. Tom discovered Nicaragua in 1985-86, and began work with the Nicaragua Solidarity Committee of Chicago. He has organized numerous conferences and events, has written many newsletters, and maintains active outreach for and development of the total change he seeks.Mark BurtonMark Burton is a lawyer in private practice where he specializes in criminal defense and civil rights. He graduated from Colorado College with a degree in romance languages and graduated from the University of Denver School of Law with a juris doctor. Mark has been involved in social justice movements which began with his work in the British Trade Union movement where he was a rank and file organizer for low paid hospital workers where he helped organize wage and conditions campaigns. More recently, Mark has been involved in immigrant rights, social justice, and anti-war movements. As an active member of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) International Committee Mark has organized a joint AFGJ/NLG delegation to Colombia. In his law practice Mark specializes in indigent defense, freeing the wrongfully convicted, and the human and civil rights of people in the face of government repression.Charlie Delaney MegesoCharlie Delaney Megeso, has worked as a master mason for thirty years. He is currently an elected citizen judge in Chittenden County, Vermont. As a member of the Abenaki tribe, he has been involved in the indigenous movement for twenty-five years. He was a legal researcher for the tribal judge and served as tribal ambassador to Washington, DC. He wrote two bills that became law, concerning state recognition of indigenous tribes in Vermont. He is also a former chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs. Over the past eighteen years he has done reconstruction work with the Miskito people on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. He works with the Miskito official representative to the US, and he serves as the North American representative of the Miskito to the United Nations and the US State Department. In 2002-2003 he was a delegate to the United Nations, representing both the Abenakis and Miskito; and he served on a committee working on the International Declaration of Indigenous Rights, ratified into international law in 2007.Katherine HoytKatherine Hoyt was the National Co-Coordinator of Alliance for Global Justice and its Nicaragua Network program. She lived eighteen years in Latin America -- two years in Chile and sixteen in Nicaragua. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Rutgers University and has authored numerous academic and activist publications including The Many Faces of Sandinista Democracy from Ohio University Press. She has taught at Wayne State University, Rutgers University and Whitman College. In the mid-eighties she served as the Michigan coordinator of the Pledge of Resistance as director of the Michigan Interfaith Committee on Central American Human Rights (MICAH) in Detroit.
At Alliance for Global Justice, she has worked on campaigns to support Nicaragua's garment workers and on campaigns against IMF mandated privatization and user fees. In the 2000s, she actively represented the Nicaragua Network in the Stop CAFTA Coalition. In 2016 Kathy retired and joined the AfGJ board.John OcampoJohn Ocampo is a labor organizer. He has done international accompaniment work with campesino organizations in Guatemala, participated in solidarity campaigns with Colombian workers and political prisoners, and served as an electoral observer in El Salvador and Honduras. He is honored to have been an interpreter on several AfGJ delegations in recent years. John has also worked in the telecommunications and hospitality industries.I V RodriguezI V Rodriguez first became active in the immigrant rights movement as a child when the ranch hand where she was a caretaker had been deported twice. After witnessing the human rights violations committed against him, she has spent a lifetime attempting to expose many forms of injustices.
She was educated in the areas of Psychology and Spanish and as a graduate student in Education and Ethnic Studies. She recently resigned as a teacher of Special Education-of students who experience their own class of injustice-to devote full-time to social justice work. She strives to accomplish this is as an independent radio and online journalist. Through that role she works to give space to those voices that have been underrepresented, marginalized, suppressed, or repressed, an opportunity to express their positions. Reporting from on location is an important element of this reporting. She sees much of the reporting done by dominant media as interpretations from inexperienced sources and not from those who have interacted with sources in any significant way. For example, in 2013 she accompanied the Immokalee Farm workers in their 200 mile walk from Fort Myers, to Lakeland, Florida to expose the slavery conditions that the farm workers still face, and the 200 mile Peace Walk against Drone Warfare with the organization Voices for Creative Nonviolence from the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois to the Des Moines Air National Guard Facility at the Des Moines International Airport to raise awareness of the facility’s conversion to a drone command center in 2014. We also reported from the Sonora desert from the annual 75-mile long Migrant Trail organized by Coalicion de Derechos Humanos. Reporting from less accessible areas such as North Korea, Cuba, and Iran plays a significant role in giving a space for voices that have had less of an opportunity for expression.
She is a sheep farmer and is now fighting fracking in the county where her farm is located. She hopes to return to the farm when the area has been liberated of the pollution that has permeated the air and water of the once more pristine areas of the nation.Shelly ScribnerShelly Scribner has a master's degree in special education from San Francisco State University. For over 25 years she taught babies with disabilities, ranging from newborn to three years old; and she has worked with homeless children for over 12 years. She is active with a sister-city project linking Merced, California, with Somoto, Nicaragua; and she serves on the Norcal board which represents sister cities in northern California. She has been co-chairperson of the Modesto Peace/Life Center, organizing vigils for Modesto and San Francisco.Natali SegoviaNatali Segovia, of Quechua/Peruvian descent, is an international human rights advocate. Natali holds a law degree from Arizona State University with a concentration in International Law and Federal Indian Law, in addition to dual-degrees in Latin American Studies and Political Science from Columbia University.
Natali has served on various international delegations on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild and/or the Alliance for Global Justice, conducting human rights research and coordinating fieldwork in Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico. Most recently, her work in Colombia has focused on human rights violations, internal displacement of indigenous peoples and rural communities, environmental issues and transitional justice during the Colombian-FARC peace process. For the past two years, she lived abroad in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where she was a professor of Academic Research and Writing at the Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno. While there, her research interests focused on the socio-economic, cultural and environmental impact of multinational corporations and US foreign policy on indigenous peoples and the Latin American region.
Natali is the current chair of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Committee of the National Lawyers Guild and serves on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Global Justice. She is currently pending admission to the State Bar of Arizona and works for a boutique civil litigation firm with a Federal Indian Law practice in Phoenix.Banbose ShangoBanbose Shango has a long history (since 1967) of struggle in the nationalist, peace, student, socialist, solidarity and pan-Africanist movement. He was born in Jamaica, grew up in Chicago, and has a background in electrical & plumbing. A student of Shaw University (NC) and UICC, he has participated in organizing for six months in Conakry, Guinea with the PRPAG (Pan-African Revolutionary Party of Guinea); the 5th ALBA (The Bolivarian Alternative for Our America’s) conference in April 2007 held in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, and took a Venezuela Solidarity Network’ (VSN) delegation in July 2007 to Caracas and Barlovento. He is co-chair-at-large of the National Network on Cuba (NNOC). He served as a International Election Observer at the victorious Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) presidential elections in El Salvador in 2009. He was also a delegate to the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in Cochabamba, Bolivia in April 2010. He participated as a member of the initial Plumbers Brigade to Cuba in August 2010, which in coordination with the CTC (Cuban Trade Union), helped to build community apartments in the Plyer municipality of Havana. He has spoken for and represented the A-APRP/A-APRP (GC) on numerous campuses, conferences, delegations, seminars, community meetings and at international manifestations. Banbose was formerly the Region Co-Coordinator of the Venezuelan Solidarity Network.Bob SiegelBob Siegel is an investment manager in private practice in New York City. He received his A.B. in International Relations from Brown and his M.B.A. from Harvard. Bob serves on the Boards of three other prominent national progressive organizations: 1) North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), which publishes a widely respected journal on Latin America affairs.; 2) Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which, since its founding in 1986, has been the nation’s leading media watchdog group documenting and attempting to counter the right-wing bias and censorship of the U.S. mainstream media; 3 ) The New York State branch of Peace Action. In 2006, he received New York State Peace Action's highest award in recognition of his work on behalf of that organization.Donna LeistEmeritus Board Member --
Donna Leist's first experience with political activism was during the 1960s at the University of Louisville, taught her the contradictions of simultaneously joining a sorority and the civil rights movement. She dropped out of school after two years to help care for her terminally ill mother. In the 1980s, while working at the Cincinnati Zoo and University of Cincinnati Medical Center, she became coordinator of the Cincinnati Central American Task Force, co-founded the local group People in Solidarity with Cuba, and attended the University of Cincinnati on a part-time basis. Donna served as Chair of the Board of the Alliance for Global Justice from 2003-2011. Prior to that she was chair of the Executive Committee of the Nicaragua Network, a country she first visited in 1985 and where she and her husband will be moving in early 2012.Emeritus Board Member --
Dr. Arnold Matlin traveled to El Sauce, Nicaragua with five other people (including my daughter, Sara Matlin) and returned to the United States to co-found the Rochester-El Sauce Ciudad Hermana Organization (now Ciudad Hermana Task Force) in 1988. He served as Corresponding Secretary of Ciudad Hermana ("Sister City") Task Force for approximately 10 years. Since 1989, Arnie traveled to Nicaragua on 36 additional visits most recently to give the keynote closing speech at the Primer Congreso Internacional de Hermanamientos in Managua, Nicaragua [First International Congress of Sister Cities] on July 16, 2016. He has given several presentations and lectures on varies topics related to solidarity work with Nicaragua. Since 2006 Arnie has been a member of the Steering Committee of Rochester Committee on Latin America and is currently the Secretary.We envision societies which explore and implement alternatives to the unjust domination of governments, global financial institutions and multinational corporations which denigrate the world's peoples and devastate ecosystems. We envision the development of a unified domestic and international movement of transformational grassroots organizations that promote a socially, ecologically and economically just world._750d1b28-8300-11e7-865d-a15f935edbbcTo achieve social change and economic justice by helping to build a stronger more unified grassroots movement._750d1ccc-8300-11e7-865d-a15f935edbbcSocial ChangeFour Areas of Struggle --
We identify four main areas of interwoven struggle for liberation from Empire and for a better, more beautiful world. These are the struggles:Economic JusticeFor Economic Justice -- We stand in favor of community-based development versus corporate globalization and privatization. We believe a just society is oriented toward meeting the needs and supporting the sufficiency of its own people, not toward creating vast inequality and mega-profits for those at the top at the expense of the many. We oppose neoliberal economics and its manifestations as Free Trade Agreements and austerity programs imposed on other countries via "aid" programs that encourage privatization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and various other institutions.Anti-MilitarismAgainst US Militarism -- We recognize that at their roots, militarism and modern wars result from coercive force and violent oppression waged in favor of economic and political systems that seek to concentrate wealth, power and resources in the hands of a privileged few. Spending about as much as the rest of the world combined on military expenditures, the US war machine has become global Capital's "insurance company", fighting to open, secure, protect and guard the interests of transnational corporations via US military dominance around the world.DemocracyFor Real Democracy -- We work for participatory democracy and against false democratic forms that reinforce inequality and undermine communities. We denounce electoral processes that give enormous and undue influence to wealthy corporations while marginalizing the decision-making capabilities of our own communities. We consider to be a major part of our international solidarity work the task of exposing and opposing US interference in other countries via the mis-named National Endowment for Democracy and other components of US democracy manipulation efforts.Ecological SustainabilityFor Ecological Integrity -- We advocate for ecological sustainability, threatened worldwide because of the consumptive excesses of wealthy nations and their constant search for new resources to exploit. Global warming is a direct result of this excess and the drive to put profits before the planet's own health. Another result is the ongoing effort by private, multinational corporations to gain control over natural resources. The communities that live in and are part of an ecosystem should have a direct voice in deciding how its resources will be used and managed, over and above corporate and foreign interests.PrinciplesOur Principles --
Core Principles of the Alliance for Global JusticeSelf-DeterminationWe believe in the right of people to self-determination and self-defense.Self-DefenseWe do not criticize the strategies and tactics of authentic organizations of the oppressed. Our parent organization, the Nicaragua Network, was founded to support an armed revolution.PacifismWe respect pacifism as a strategy, and we respect individuals who practice it as a way of life. We do not support imposing that personal belief on others, especially the marginalized and oppressed.SolidarityOur work adheres to the Solidarity Model which says that our role is to amplify the articulated priorities of our oppressed partners rather than to tell them what we think is best for them.Anti-CapitalismWe are anti-capitalist without rigidly adhering to any one utopian alternative economic model.Social ContractsWe support social contracts and economic systems that maximize the development of human potential and well-being.CommunitiesWe believe that there are many ways for communities to develop such contracts and systems, including some not yet thought of.ShelterWe believe in the right of people to shelter, sufficient food, medical care, education, employment, leisure, and self-organization for the common good. We oppose structures that distribute wealth in ways that deny anyone those basic rights.FoodMedical CareEducationEmploymentLeisureSelf-OrganizationAnti-ImperialismWe are anti-imperialist and oppose US militarism. We oppose all US wars and use of US military force abroad. History has shown that US wars are unjust, exploitative, and profit-driven. We reject the concept of "humanitarian" intervention by the US because we believe its underlying motives are strategic and economic rather than humanitarian.ParticipationWe support participatory democracy as opposed to Western-style liberal democracy which was explicitly designed to limit democracy and insure control of government by the propertied class.National SovereigntyWe support national sovereignty and oppose all efforts by the US government to subvert other sovereign States through manipulation of their elections, social movements, forced debt, unequal trade treaties and predatory business practices, or military threat.Human SurvivalWe believe in the continued survival of humankind. We oppose threats to that survival from destruction of the environment, unrestrained Western consumerism, and unsustainable exploitation of resources in the natural world.Multi-PolarismWe support a multi-polar political world and oppose the myth of US exceptionalism and its ambition toward unchallengeable military power, the quest for which is bankrupting the country.Group RightsWe support group rights as equal to or superior to the rights of individuals articulated by 18th Century European men.DiversityWe respect and support diversity in every form that does not infringe on the group and individual rights of others.Individual RightsGrassroots MovementBuild a stronger more unified grassroots movement._750d1e0c-8300-11e7-865d-a15f935edbbcChange AgentsThe Alliance nurtures organizations seeking fundamental change in international and national conditions that disempower people, create disparities in access to wealth and power, poison the earth, and plunder its resources.Political AnalysisShare political analysis._750d1fb0-8300-11e7-865d-a15f935edbbc1ActionMobilize for direct action._750d20fa-8300-11e7-865d-a15f935edbbc2MonitoringMonitor the centers of corporate and government power._750d221c-8300-11e7-865d-a15f935edbbc3Power CentersCorporationsGovernment AgenciesCommunicationExpand channels of communication._750d2424-8300-11e7-865d-a15f935edbbc4Skills & InfrastructureShare skills and infrastructure._750d2546-8300-11e7-865d-a15f935edbbc52017-08-16http://afgj.org/aboutOwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net